Five Facts About Office Chairs You May Not Know

25th April 2018

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Brush up on your knowledge...

We like to think that our blog is a big old pot of knowledge, especially when it comes to product guides and interior design inspiration. However, we thought we'd shake things up a little bit in today's post. We're going to share five of our favourite facts about office chairs. Yep, doesn't sound very exciting, but we guarantee you'll learn something that you didn't know before! And while you're at it, you can browse our extensive range of office chairs by clicking here.

Our top 5 facts about office chairs

We scoured the web (and our own brains!) for all the facts we could find about the throne of the office. Then, we whittled them down to the most interesting, so you can impress at your next social outing. So, without further ado, here are our top facts about office chairs!

1. Charles Darwin was one of the first innovators

The world-famous scientist was known for being an innovator of many things. However, you may not know that he was the first person to add wheels to the original office chair. Darwin added wheels to his desk chair for extra mobility whilst studying specimens in his office. Of course, this led to the modern wheeled office chair that we know and 'love' today!

2. The first modern office chair was 'too comfortable'

The Centripetal Spring Armchair was designed and created by an American inventor in the mid 19th century. Thomas E. Warren created a chair that was not dissimilar to what we see today - all the typical features such as armrests, wheels and an adjustable base were present. However, the chair struggled to become popular outside the US as it was 'too comfortable'. During this era, Victorian-era British companies saw this as immoral and didn't value their workers' comfort.

3. Comfort was important but not why you might think...

In the US, office chairs were designed with comfort in mind, first and foremost. However, this isn't for the reason that you might think! The aim of a comfortable chair was to make sure that employees would stay sat down for as long as possible - therefore, more work could be completed. Nowadays, we're encouraged to regularly stand up and move around, whilst our chairs are designed to prevent injury.

4. An office chair can affect how productive you are

As our last fact mentioned, office chairs in modern times are designed ergonomically to make sure workers are happy and comfortable. In fact, there has been an extensive study carried out which looked at the productivity of employees and the relationship this had with their chairs. The University of Southern California found that workers were 17.5% more productive when they were in 'an ergonomic setting'. 17.5% extra productivity in an 8 hour work day actually equates to nearly 1 hour and a half. So, it's worth investing in good chairs...

5. We spend nearly 2000 hours a year at work

Yep, that's right. If the average person in the UK works 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, that adds up to 1920 hours a year (taking an average of 20 days holiday and weekends into consideration). That's a ridiculously long amount of time and just shows how important it is that we find ourselves a decent office chair that we can be both comfortable and productive in.

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